Bo's hand slowed along the sleeping dog's back. "You never did say what her name is?"

Paige started to tell him the dog's name was Butterscotch, but stopped, tugged by the way he cradled the puppy and talked about someday having a pet when he could give it the attention it deserved. "We haven't named her yet. How about you decide on something before you come back Monday?"

She braced for another of his killer smiles—a smile that never came. He just returned her stare with somber intensity that stirred more of that dry lightning inside before he set the soon-to-be-renamed dog on the ground beside her and stood.

"Yes, ma'am. I'll see you then."

And for some scary reason when he said ma'am this time, she didn't feel at all old.

Chapter 5

Bo felt the music soak into him, resonating through the strings into his fingers. Playing the guitar—or the piano, drums, even some saxophone when the mood called— brought the world back into focus for him by paring everything down. Only notes at his command remained.

Sprawling back on the lumpy sofa at the Minot AFB temporary lodging facility, he propped his tennis shoe against the coffee table, flight suit exchanged for jeans and a Tshirt. His right hand plucked while his left fingered along the frets in routine scales that somehow became a song of their own in the rhythmic musicality of warming up. His buddies didn't seem to object to his tunes, so he kept picking away, scales shifting to Bach on the guitar.

Rather than separating the crew into officer and enlisted quarters, they'd been bunked together in a suite with four rooms attached to a common room, as per the flight orders, maintain crew integrity. Not that Quade's closed door invited much camaraderie or bonding as called for in the orders.

Tag's door, however, stayed open while he sprawled on his bed talking to his wife on the phone. Mako perched on the edge of the sofa, his boots and polishing kit spread out over the coffee table in front of him. Bo let his fingers find their way along the strings until Bach morphed into a calypso beat that sounded a little too much like a tropical tune ready-made to serenade a luscious lady sunbather.

Nu-uh. Not gonna go there.

He forced his fingers to hammer out some Rolling Stones. Damn straight he wasn't getting much satisfaction these days. Sexual or practical.

Jansen was keeping an eye out for suspicious strangers around his sister, but didn't have any helpful insights. Bo's computer search on his laptop about Paige's dead husband hadn't brought any new info other than the standard questions about identifying the rest of the man's contacts, which shouldn't have surprised him. He'd spent countless hours over the past year researching the bastard.

And Paige.

Damn. He forced his strumming to segue into vintage Carlos Santana. A guitarist for the ages.

His soul settled.

At least something was going his way. He'd already spoken to Quade about taking leave while he waited around for the plane to be repaired. The commander had glowered and nodded, then headed into his room. Door closed. No chitchat.

Mako unwrapped the torn T-shirt rag from around two fingers. He tossed aside the polish-stained cotton cloth along with the small round tin. "Figures you would find the lone tree here in North Dakota."

"Tree?"

"You know—woman behind every tree." He swiped the buffing brush along the sides of his boot. "Apparently from what I saw at the air show, you found that tree."

It took Bo a second to remember that Mako wouldn't have recognized her. While they'd partied together on TDYs over the years, the jokester tech sergeant was new to Charleston Air Force Base, a recent transfer into the maintenance squadron from McChord AFB in Washington.

"I already knew her from when she used to live in Charleston." Enough on the subject to cover his butt if someone filled in Mako, but not so much as to offer up more about Paige's past than she would want out there.

"Cute kid she's got," Mako pressed, awful damn nosy all of the sudden. Buff, buff with the brush along one side. Buff, buff along the toe with a reminder of puked-on boots that needed polishing. "Single mother, I assume?"

"Uh-huh. Widowed." His thumb slipped on a string.

"Pretty lady."

"Uh-huh." Understatement. Blond and lush even in jeans and no makeup, Paige resembled one of those WWII pinup posters he'd once seen in an Air Force museum.

"Are she and her kid the reason you're asking for leave while you're here?"

Bo set aside his guitar. "Something wrong with sightseeing? God knows we've all got leave time coming out of our ass since they keep us too busy to use it."

"So you're planning a trip down to Mt. Rushmore with that leave you asked the colonel about."

Why the hell was everyone pushing him to Rushmore? "Are you looking to start a travel agency? Next thing we know, you'll be passing out leis and discount booklets."

Mako tossed down the buffing brush, with a smirk. "That's a lot of defensive bad attitude over just hanging out with an old friend. I smell a story here."

Evading would of course prove the guy's point. "I'm taking time off to do a favor for a friend by flying her around some. Yes, it's the woman who was at the air show. She works with a vet clinic that makes emergency calls to remote locales."

"Ah, I get it." Mako snagged the lighter from his polishing kit and flicked once, twice, again until a flame shot free. Slowly he glided it along the top to heighten the sheen.

"Doctors Without Borders for cows."

"Pretty much. Beats hanging out watching my nose hairs grow while we wait for those shipped parts to arrive."

The flame snaked a blue path over the boot, reminding him of fire from the engine when he'd crash-landed in Rubistan. Fire that could have engulfed them after the bird strike.

Fire that did engulf him every time he looked at Paige Haugen.

And that was the core of his frustration.

Yeah, he enjoyed women, but he was always in control, like with his music or in the plane. He called the shots right up to the time either he walked or they did. He didn't like one damned bit how much he'd wanted to stay with her—in a dog kennel for crying out loud—just to hear the Dakota melody of her voice while mosquitoes chewed his hide.

Mako set aside the boot and lighter. "If she's just an old friend, how come you didn't give her a tour of our plane?"

"Because I knew you'd smirk just like you're doing right now."

Laughing low, Mako scooped up his shining kit and boots. "Fair enough. And on that note, I'm ready to rack. See ya in the morning, sir."

Snagging his guitar by the neck, Bo stood. He meant to stride right past and stow his guitar in his room. So why was he stopped outside Tag's door? The guy was busy talking with his wife, Rena, about their new baby, anyway.

Bo started to move on. Tag held up a hand signaling for him to wait.

Swinging his legs to the side of the bed as he sat up, Tag waved Bo in while still talking on the phone. "Hey, babe, it's time for me to head over to the gym. I'll call tomorrow and let you know details of how they're getting the colonel and me home on Monday."

Tag smiled at whatever she said in response. "Great. Yeah, babe, love you, too."

And the guy did. No question, Tag and Rena Price had something special, that sort of something Bo had thought maybe he'd find some day.

Yet even rock-solid Tag had experienced marital troubles a year ago. The loadmaster had been in the process of a divorce at the time of their shoot down in Rubistan. After their release and return, a surprise pregnancy—and the threat of Kurt Haugen—had brought Tag and his wife back together again.

Bo waited in the open doorway. He and Tag shared some hellish memories, bonding crap that took them past normal officer and enlisted boundaries. Tag had been there for him right after the shoot down and during their capture. The older man had taken a boot to the ribs to deflect more blows after Bo's hands were broken.

He didn't know what he expected to gain from talking to Tag now. Some fatherly advice maybe? About what? He wasn't even sure.

"You okay?" Tag set the phone on the bedside table.

Was he referring to the emergency landing? Or Paige Haugen? Damn but Tag had a way of fishing with those short questions that left the field wide-open for interpretation.

"Just hanging out, nothing to do. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

Duh. Because he couldn't stop thinking about how Kurt Haugen had held them all hostage in Tag's home until Tag had risked tackling the man while Bo shielded Tag's pregnant wife.

Haugen had hoped to find information about military drug-surveillance flights to offer his mob boss in exchange for a ticket out of organized crime and safe passage to another country. The guy had been obsessed with starting a new life with his wife and daughter, had even discussed how he would trick them into leaving under the guise of a "surprise"

vacation.

His fists clenched at how close Paige had come to a fugitive lifestyle, or an arrest in a foreign country where she could have been left to rot in a hellhole cell. He knew firsthand how much hellhole cells sucked. Relaxing his fists, he worked his wrist back and forth, thankful for the modern technology of surgically inserted metal pins and screws.

"So you're all right." Tag shoved a hand through his salt-and-pepper buzz cut. "Kudos to you then, my friend, because seeing that blast from the past on the flight line had me racing for the phone last night to hear my wife's voice and make sure she's okay. Crazy, huh?"

"Nah, not at all." He slumped against the door frame, one tennis shoe up and flat against the molding.

"Exactly my point. So, I'll say it again. You okay?"

"I'm fine enough. Haugen deserved to go to jail. We weren't the ones who killed him."

Ah, hell, and there was a part of his problem, because he'd wanted to dig Haugen up and kill him again, the father of that somber-eyed little girl. "Even if he'd died that day in the takedown instead of later in jail, we would have been justified. He held a pregnant woman hostage, for crying out loud." Tag, Bo and Tag's son, as well.

Tag's jaw flexed. Hard. "Yes, he did."

Logical, but still hard as hell to reconcile. "A crime's a crime, but somehow it feels worse when women and kids are hurt."

Tag's wife. Their baby.

Kirstie.

Paige.

Damn. His eyes fell away to Tag's latest paperback splayed open on the bed. "Why the hell do I feel so responsible for her and her kid?"

Tag didn't bother asking what woman and which kid. He didn't say anything at all, his knack with silence always prompting more words than a dozen questions.

"I could be spending the next couple of weeks on easy duty baby-sitting the plane while Mako finishes his repairs. Instead I'm going to be humping my butt around in a beat-up Cessna making house calls on sick cows."

Tag studied his clasped hands for long silent moments before words finally rumbled up.

"My wife says one of the fundamental reasons for arguments between men and women is that sometimes women just want to vent. But when men hear about a problem, we start listing ways to fix it and cut short her rant."

"Yeah, so?"

"A woman doesn't necessarily want fixing. Sometimes she just wants to vent so she feels better about what can't be changed."

"And that helps me how?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

"Good God, now you really sound like your counselor wife." He thought of all those mandatory psych evals he and the rest of the crew had been required to attend after the shoot down. Damn but he resented anyone getting too close, crawling inside his head and making him discuss crap that didn't matter anymore.

Tag's weathered face creased with a slow grin. "Counselor? Me? You're lucky I can't punch an officer, sir."